Summary
William Shakespeare brought us to the story of love between aristocrats and their lady, exactly Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia. Demetrius and Lysander are trying to win Hermia’s love. Hermia loves Lysander but Egeus, her father want to marry her with Demetrius. It’s a hard position for Hermia. The more she throws Lysander away from her heart, the more she loves him.
Lysander and Hermia go out of the Athens to “the wood”. He wants to marry her there, outside Athens and the law. There are fairies live in that place. Titania the queen and Oberon the king of fairies have a quarrel. Oberon asks a changing boy from Titania but she doesn’t give him the boy. In order to get the boy, he summons Puck to disturb the aristocrats of Hippolyta that protected by Titania.
Puck has a juice from a flower called ”love-in-idleness” that make people love the men they see at first after wake up from sleep. But if the spell finished they assume is as a dream. Puck gives it to Demetrius and Lysander. It makes them falling in love with Helena. Successful with it, Puck disturb the artisans by spell Bottom becomes ass-headed. The performance is actually ruined. The artisans go away because they afraid with Bottom. On the other hand when Titania slept, Puck gives the juice to her eyelids. When she heard the voice of the artisans, she wake up and saw ass-headed and suddenly loves him.
It is a happy ending. At the end of the story, Oberon gets the boy and pity with the queen. At the end Puck cures them all. So that Lysander marries with Hermia, Demetrius with Helen, duke of Athens; Theseus with Queen Amazons Hippolyta and the fairy’s queen and king bless them. On the other hand, Bottom makes a play based on his dream with fairy queen. And he asks for the composer to arrange music about it. Whether sometimes love is irrational, the experience of love also make people creative.
Setting-Place
Athens, the place of Theseus. A wood near Athens, place of fairies. At the story, church was established showed by the existence of nun. It means that the setting of the story is not in ancient time but around the middle age. At summer because of the title said that.
Characters
The major characters are Demetrius, Hermia, Helen, Lysander, Bottom, Oberon, Titania and Puck. The minor characters are Theseus, Hippolyta, artisan players and fairies.
The most interesting characters are Oberon, Hermia, and Hippolyta. Oberon is a king of the fairies. He has power to get everything he wants except a changing boy from Titania. He wants the boy to be a knight under his guidance but Titania doesn’t allow him because her mother died in giving birth to the boy. We can imagine how mad he is. He never performs dance together with Titania so that the weather becomes terrible, it seem more like winter than summer by fogs and floods. He use trick to win it. He summons Puck a mischievous fairy to make it run. The special juice and the spell make her irrational and falling in love with an ass-headed. She looses her rationality and defeated. His passion make him pity to the queen after he get everything from her. And at the end the story he summons Puck to cure her.
Hermia is Theseus’s daughter. She loves Demetrius and doesn’t want to marry with Lysander. But in the Athenian laws her father has a right to marry him with everyone want. She obey it because the punishments. She didn’t want to death or become a nun. In order to struggle her love she go to the wood outside the Athenian law and marry with Lysander there. Outside Athenian law means a dangerous place. There are no soldiers that protect her. It’s really happen when Puck disturb them. As the result Lysander is suddenly love Helen and reject Hermia. In the confusion and rejection, Hermia is strong enough to survive. She didn’t do anything harm to herself. On the other hand, she still opens her mind to Lysander’s love.
Hippolyta is not a major character. But her story behind is very interesting. She is a queen of Amazon. Amazon is a tribe that has woman soldiers. The women there will train as men to protect their land. We can imagine her as a strong build woman but still beautiful. Four day will quickly steep themselves in night; four nights will quickly dream away the time; and the moon, like a silver bow New bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities. Her words show us how peace and happy she betrothed with Theseus. She is a soldier and she can protect her people more by marrying and Athenian king.
Theme Love Commedy
Symbol
Juice of flower called “love-in-idleness”
It’s a symbol of love without rationality. The effect of it juice is in the spirit level so that they will in dream. The people who receive it in their eyelids when they sleep will lose their awareness of feeling and will. So that they will suddenly falling in love to everyone they see when they wake up. In this case rationality is not use anymore. They completely controlled by the dreams.
It use by Puck that was summoned by Oberon. We know Oberon has a quarrel with Titania. Because they never perform dance together the weather changes. And it is causing chaos to weather in the earth. In this case this device is represents a solution of it. By defeat the rationality Oberon conquer everything and fulfill his needs. On the other hand Lysander and Demetrius fight for a girl they not put any love before. Again Helen recognizes Lysander and Demetrius as mockers. She assumes their words as insults. And again there is a quarrel between Hermia and Helen. They blame each other. They are the victim of the juice.
In our world know the juice means tools that use by people to conquer the world. Many people in the world don’t have awareness because of so many kinds of products. Many people stir up with the advertisement of the product. They are being stirred so that they trust it, buy it, and use it even the advertisement is not rational. Some advertisements said that the people must use their product if they want to be modern, young, loved, and clever. The people who use it mean they trust and love it. Some people depend on it and join the organization established by the companies who produce it. In fact the products are not related to their personality.
The massage is about awareness. All people must aware that the capitalist who have the juice are not Oberon who has passion. They have no mercy to their victim. They use every possibility for their own benefits. And people as like as animal to be hunted, everywhere they go there are advertisements, along the street, school, church, government, under the sea, and up the mountain. People who live in the system only move in Satan circle become consumers without any awareness. If the people aware about it we can cut it directly. Let’s decrease our dependency to the capitalist!
“I will not stir from this place, do what they can:
I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.”
(Bottom, act 3, scene 1 lines 120-125)
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